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coolaid Dye

5K views 20 replies 14 participants last post by  flytyer 
#1 ·
I was wanting some pink hackle and didn't have any around so I decided to try dying some mallard with Fruit punch coolaid. It seems like the color stuck pretty well. I rinsed it for quite a while and it didn't seem to get any lighter. I guess time will tell if it fades or washes out when fished
 
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#7 ·
Allen,

I hope you put some white vinegar into the dye bath with the Kool Aid, otherwise, both sunlight and the fly being drowned for long periods when fished will cause some fading. Kool Aid's colorant is an acid dye, which is why it works to dye protein based materials like feathers and fur, but it needs white vinegar to set it properly and make it color and washfast.
 
#8 ·
Just wondering if you got a recipe? How much vinegar in how much water? I have talked with several people about this subject and some guys seem to be really anal about their perportions. Then others have a pinch of this and a dash of that approach. Just wondering what your method is.

Thanks
 
#10 ·
A great book to get your hands on is " Dyeing and Bleaching Natural Fly-Tying Materials. By A.K. Best. Very good book, with in depth descriptions of all the required processes. Google it and I am sure you could come up with it at Amazon or other book sellers.
 
#16 ·
brood dude and Fred,

Don't worry about how much white vinegar to use, just add enough so that the dye bath has a good vinegar smell. If you really want a measured amount, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of vinegar for 1 quart of water. But truthfully, you don't have to measure it because you can't put in so much that it will effect the dye job. The excess vinegar will simply go down the drain when you dump the dye bath and rinse the material to get rid of excess dye.

Poul,

Although I bought A.K.'s book on dyeing when it was first published a few years back, I was not impressed with it and felt I wasted my money. The new edition is just as poor in my opinion. It reads as if it were written by someone who has done very little dyeing, but because he is a prominent fly tyer, was asked to write a basic book on dyeing (much in the same vein as Art Sheck did with his book on building fly rods) since there was (and still isn't) a book devoted solely to dyeing fly tyeing materials on the market.

Heck, he doesn't even talk about using Synthrapol in his book and that is something that should be used by anyone dyeing fly tying materials. Synthrapol is a detergent, dye dispersant, and degreaser that was formulated specifically for dyeing in order to clean, degrease, and provide for even absorbtion of the dye to prevent splotchiness and uneven color retention.

A.K. also talks very highly of Veniard's dyes, which he calls "very powerful". Veniard's dyes are nothing more than acid dyes, but there is a problem with Veniard's dyes, almost none of their colors are composed of a single color or type of acid dye (yes, there are several different types of acid dyes and they set at different times when dyeing). They are made up of different colors of dye powder that are blended together. The problem with this is you cannot get the same shade the next time you use the dye because the powder might contain more or less of a color in the next 1/4 teaspoon of dye powder you use. Also, because they are also often made up of different types of acid dyes, if you use less or more of the dye powder, the color will be different, and that is not good if you want a little or more pastel shade of the same color because with Veniard's you will usually end up with a different color, not a lighter or darker version of what you think.

A.K. keeps talking about using RIT Dye, which is a very poor choice for fly tying materials since it is a so-called "union dye" that can be used on anything from cellulose-based (like cotton), poly, nylon, protein-based (like fly tying materials), and pretty much whatever other material you can think of. In other words, there is a lot of dye in a package of RIT that is useless for dyeing protein based materials like fly tying feathers and fur. RIT also doesn't produce good, bright, brilliant colors.

When I first started dyeing materials back in the late 1970's, the only dye I could readily get was RIT, and since Dave Whitlock had written about using RIT to dye deer body hair, I used it. I was never happy with the results. They were never the bright, clear, brilliant colors I wanted. Yes, I got some nice muted gold, yellow, orange, and green from using RIT, but it wasn't the deep, bright, brilliant color I was after.

I then tried Veniard's, which I got via mailorder. The colors were deep, bright, and brilliant and the material dyed in a fraction of the time it took with RIT. Unfortunately, when I tried to duplicate the color on another batch of the same materials, I couldn't get the same color despite having kept very detailed records of how much dye was used, the temp of the dye bath, how much vinegar was used, how long the material was in the dye bath. I then took a tying class from Dave Whitlock on tying his deer hair bass bugs and hoppers. During lunch, I asked him what I was doing wrong because I couldn't get Veniard's to give me consistent colors and RIT didn't give me the nice, bright, brilliant, clear colors he had in the deer body hair he had with him that he told us he dyed himself. Whitlock told me about Veniard's being blends of colors and why that kept me from being able to reproduce the colors with most of the Veniard's colors. He also told me about RIT being a union dye and what that meant. He finished by telling me he used acid dyes and that he got them from Orco Dye Company or Kiton. I've never looked back since that conversation of over 30 years ago.

So folks, please do yourself a favor and don't use RIT or Veniard's dyes.

The best how-to on dyeing I've seen is in Radencich's 1st book TYING THE CLASSIC SALMON FLY published in 1997. Ted Roebel, Ph.D. (I think that is how you spell his last name without looking it up in the book) wrote a superb chapter on dyeing and how it works for the book. Dr. Roebel is an organic chemist and I cannot recommend his chapter of this book or Radencich highly enough. Read this chapter and you will learn more from it that reading A.K. Best's book on dyeing 1,000 times.
 
#17 ·
in Mr. Best's defense he is talking about dyeing trout materials for the most part and therefore he maybe does not want super bright colors. he gets the colors he wants and he can keep them consistent. he has only been using his own dyed feathers and quills in his work for 40+ years with thousands of happy customers. i have right here in front of me several of his flies i got at a show all of ten years ago and they still look fine. all dyed with RIT. he also goes in depth into mixing the whole package of dye into a concentrate to avoid the differences in the mixed dyes and to get consistent results. funny you don't mention that. a lot of people have used his methods for many years with great, consistent results and i am one of them. every time i see a post on dying i just have to wait a day to have you pick his instructions apart.

maybe you should write your own book if his sucks so bad?
 
#19 ·
in Mr. Best's defense he is talking about dyeing trout materials for the most part and therefore he maybe does not want super bright colors.
I have been dying with both Rit and Veniard for 30 years and both suck, I think its time to look into the Orco Dye. Rit may work for trout flies but not for what I want in steelhead colors.

Flytyer - where do you get the stuff?
 
#21 ·
Black Francis,

OK, I stand corrected in my assumption about Mr. Best's dyeing experience.

Yes, I'm very aware that Mr. Best wrote in his book about mixing the RIT dye powder with water to make a liquid dye. I also know that he speaks of the availability of some of the RIT colors in a pre-made liquid form. And as you mentioned, both using pre-made liquid RIT or mixing RIT powder dye with water to make your own liquid RIT makes it possible to get consistent colors each time you dye. However, you still have a lot of dye that is useless for dyeing fly tying feathers and furs in these liquid forms of RIT, something that cannot be changed or overcome due to the fact that RIT is a union dye.

And as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread, the colors with RIT are not bright, clear, brilliant ones. Something I didn't mention is that it is not easy to predict what you will end up with if you mix different colors of RIT to get a shade not available in RIT. This must be done slowly and mostly through trial-and-error.

The same is the case with Veniard's dyes with very few exceptions, even when pre-mixed into a concentrated liquid. This is precisely due to nearly all Veniard's colors being mixtures of different acid dyes, some of which are different types of acid dyes that as I've mentioned before, set at different times.

Regarding RIT producing colors that aren't super bright. What I mean by bright, clear, and brilliant is the colors are very clear and clean, not pastels unless that is what I wish, which can easily be obtained with acid dyes. I don't mean they are necessarily bright as in hot orange or Highlander Green

Neither RIT nor Kool Aid produce good, clean, bright, florescent colors. And the only Veniard's Florescent colors that I've found to dye true regardless of how much or how little dye powder you use are Hot Orange and Chartreuse.

Additionally, there are huge numbers of colors available in acid dye, including a wonderful dark blue grey (what we used to call Iron Blue Dun) - a color not available in RIT.

Marty,

Orco Dye, which they market under the label of Fly Dye with standard fly tying color names, can be gotten directly from the Orco Dye Company. Just google up Fly Dye. Angler's Workshop also carries Fly Dye in 1/2 oz bottles, but it is cheaper through Orco.

I also use WashFast Acid Dye a lot. It comes in more colors that you can imagine (and for trout tyers, some very interesting "insect-like" colors). WashFast makes the nicest hot purple I've ever seen in a one-shot dye, their Violet #17. I get it from Pro Chemical & Dye.

Pro Chemical & Dye also sells Kiton Acid Dyes, which are good dyes; but I prefer the WashFast ones because there are more colors.

Jacquard's Acid Dyes are another good brand of acid dye. Dharma Trading Company sells them. I especially like Jacquard's Fuschia, Burgundy (a wonderful dark claret), and Scarlet (my favorite red). Dharma also sells a florescent yellow that is a true Chrome Yellow color without the slight greenish tint most florescent yellow dyes have under thier own brand name.
 
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